By Byron Richmond
The end of the baseball season is finally upon us and yes baseball fans this also means the end of the year awards. In our sport we have three different categories ROY, Cy Young and MVP. Every year this a wonderful topic to debate for the loyal baseball fans out their and I live for this debate. It’s amazing how every year there is at least one surprising player in these races that deserves to win but doesn’t because either they end up hurt during the season or is beat by a player in a bigger market city. This year though we didn’t have that problem. The races in all of the polls showed that the right players are in.
First race I want to start off with is the ROY. In the NL race it’s a landslide of a margin for Mets Pete Alonso. His stats this year out ranks all qualifying rookies with a record setting 53 home runs and 160 RBI’s. Second closest in the voting to him was Padres Short Stop Fernando Tatis Jr where before he got hurt compiled 22 home runs and 56 RBI’s while batting .317. Both of these guys were going back in forth in voting until Tatis Jr. got injured for the rest of the year. It’s unfortunate that happened to Tatis but who knows if he would have kept up the pace with Alonso who hasn’t stopped since debuting early this season. AL was a close race until Astros Yordan Alvarez blasted out his competition in his first 75 games of debuting where he’s compiled 27 home runs and 78 RBI’s with a .317 average beating out the two studs in Toronto of Bichette and Guerrero Jr. Going in those two were the only ones in the running but Yordan’s rise hasn’t fallen he still continued to hit well while the other two slumped.
Now let’s go to the Cy Young races shall we. In the AL it’s a landslide and it has been all year. Astros Justin Verlander has blown away his competition by compiling 21 wins with 300 strikeouts and an ERA of 2.58 in 34 games started. Next closest to him was the Rays Charlie Morton with 16 wins and 240 strikeouts in 33 starts. In the NL it was also a two man race between Mets Jacob DeGrom and Nationals Max Scherzer . For the first part of the year it was Scherzer winning it but since being limited to four starts in July and August total with a neck issue DeGrom has passed him up in the with leading the NL in strikeouts (248) and leading the league in ERA at 1.99 since Scherzer’s injury after the all star break. With that being said it’s a fore gone conclusion that DeGrom will win his back to back Cy Young award this year.
Lastly we come now to the most important race of the season that everyone cares about and that is the MVP. This was another race in where the leaders didn’t change all year. You still have Angels Mike Trout leading the AL and Dodgers Cody Bellinger leading for the NL. Even though Trout has been out the rest of the year with a foot injury his stats have been the most consistent all year. His .291 average with 45 homers and 105 RBI’s topples everyone in the race. Same goes for Cody Bellinger in the NL, his .303 average with 47 homers and 115 RBI’s puts him up their close to Trouts numbers and no where close to anyone else competing against Bellinger. Those monster stats by both prove the reason why both have been ahead all year in voting.
